Stopping the Iranian nuclear bomb

It should come as no secret to anyone that Iran was trying to build a nuclear bomb, with the means to deliver the bomb and the first target would be Israel. In 2005, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, boldly proclaimed that Israel "should be wiped off the face of the earth".

Sounds like a story out of a James Bond movie, when a fanatic gets their hands on a weapon of mass destruction and 007 is sent to save the day, but it isn't. 007 is not real, or is he? It is also no secret that Israel really doesn't want to be the victim of a weapon like this.

Along comes Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi, born in 1958, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. However Mahabadi was also a physicist, and a senior member of Iran's nuclear program. 

He taught physics at Imam Hussein University in Tehran. A 2007 United Nations Security Council resolution identified him as a senior scientist at the Ministry of Defense and Logistics of the Armed Forces and the former head of the Physics Research Center (PHRC) in Lavizan-Shian. He was the leader of Project AMAD, Iran's Nuclear Program, as well as the Defensive Research and Innovation Organization in his country.

On November 27, 2020 Mahabadi was ambushed while traveling in a black Nissan Teana on a rural road in Absard, a city near Tehran. Iran's foreign minister, suggested that Israel was behind Fakhrizadeh's assassination. It is always easy to blame the Mossad as they would be the logical suspects here. However there are so many differing accounts of the assassination emanating from Iran so the actual details are irrelevant for the purpose of this blog.

On December 15th, the national postal operator released the draft of a postage stamp in Fakhrizadeh's honor.

The stamp, as we can see, is decorated with the image of the Martyr Fakhrizadeh, the flag of Iran, mathematical and chemical formulas, as well as a bullet mark, which is a symbol of terror and martyrdom.

As far as the formulas are concerned, given their apparent inaccuracy, they provoked protests and reactions from several people in cyberspace. In response the President of the Stamp Council, said: 

"The purpose of writing the formula on the image drawn on Fakhrizadeh's stamp was to show the scientific position of this great martyr and it is not intended to use these formulas scientifically."

The final stamp was issued in May 2021 but the design was slightly different. For example, the background formulas were no longer displayed. However, one significant element was still very prominent, located in the lower right corner: the effect of shattered glass by a bullet.

Article reproduced with permission from: https://www.filatelista-tematico-blog